Cynthia Whitaker Tufts

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Cynthia Whitaker Tufts

3 1924 031 295 300
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CYNTHIA WHITAKER TUFTS

PRINTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION BY

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS

1920

FOREWORD

My wife wrote the story of her early
years for a small group of intimate friends
and with no thought of wider publicity.
One of that group, Mr. Moore, read selec-
tions from it at the memorial services and
the expressions of appreciation have indi-
cated that a larger group would like to know
more of the life they have known in greater
or less measure. " The story originally writ-
ten by my wife covers only the period before
marriage. I have added a note on the later
years and this is followed by the apprecia-
tions of her friends, Mr. Moore and Mr.
Mead. The verses from Clough were read
at the memorial services by Mr. Ames.

James H. Tufts

Chicago
April, 1920

Say not the struggle naught availeth.

The labour and the wounds are vain.

The enemy faints not, nor faileth.

And as things have been they remain.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;

It may be, in yon smoke conceal'd.
Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers.

And, but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking.
Seem here no painful inch to gain.

Far back, through creeks and inlets making.
Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

And not by eastern windows only.

When daylight comes, comes in the light;

In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly!
But westward, look, the land is bright!

— Arthur Hugh Clough

MY LIFE

To begin the history of one's life with
one's ancestors seems so logical as to be
almost inevitable. Practically all my fore-
bears belonged to the old Puritan stock in
New England and many of them played an
active part in those troublesome times when
the hand of every man — Indian, French,
and English — seemed to be against them.
It was in one of those sudden Indian attacks
— this time upon the little town of Hatfield,
Massachusetts, that one of my ancestors
played a gallant part. So sudden and so
fierce was the attack that the colonists were
able to make almost no defense. The men
were at work in the meadows and the women
and children had no time to run to the
palisades for safety. The Indians burned
several houses, killed sixteen colonists — all
but five of whom were women and children
— and took seventeen prisoners, women,
children, and old men. From Hatfield they
went on to Deerfield where they made

7

8 Cynthia Whitaker Tufts

another attack and from there went up the
Connecticut Valley two hundred miles, then
across the mountains to Lake Champlain,
where in the French settlement the captives
found some temporary relief from cruel cold
and hunger. From here they pushed on
still farther north.

News of the attack upon Hatfield spread
quickly, and Hartford sent a body of troops,
which, with volunteers from the New Eng-
land towns, followed the Indians for some
forty miles, but could not come upon them,
so skilful were they in eluding pursuit.
No one knew which tribe of Indians had
made the attack, and only one man, Ben-
jamin Waite, seemed able to decide upon a
plan of action. He had had much to do
with the Indians. He had led scouting par-
ties against them; he had been with Captain
Turner in the ill-fated expedition against
them at what is now Turner's Falls, from
which only the little band which he led came
back in safety. He was a man of energy
and resource and he had a big personal stake
in the matter, as the Indians had burned his

Cynthia Whitaker Tufts 9

house, and his wife and three children were
among the captives. He went to Boston
and obtained a commission from the gov-
ernor of Massachusetts to act as agent for
the release of the captives and a guaranty
of funds, and on October 24 left Hatfield
with Samuel Jennings, whose wife also was
captive. They reached Albany the thir-
tieth, but were delayed here till December 10,
because, in the urgency of their enterprise,
they neglected to pay due deference to
Captain SaHsbury; so when they finally
started winter was at hand and they faced
the dangers of a dreary march through an
unknown country buried deep in snow. A
Mohawk guide led them to Lake George
and left them there after fitting out a canoe
and drawing on birch bark a rude sketch of
Lake George and Lake Champlain. They
made the trip to the i2p|>€£ end of Lake
George in three days, made a three-mile
portage, and reached the shores of Lake
Champlain, the first Englishmen to explore
the region. Where Ticonderoga now stands
they were detained for six days, unable to

lo Cynthia Whitaker Tufts

make headway against the wind in their
frail canoe, and impeded by the ice, which
was not strong enough to bear them on foot.
Provisions were exhausted and they lived on
what they could find, killing some raccoons
in a hollow tree and finding a tray of biscuits
and some brandy in a deserted wigwam.

They reached the frontier town of Cham-
big about the sixth of January. Here they
found Hannah Jennings and a few other
captives who had been pawned to the French
in exchange for liquor, and heard that the
others were with the Indians not far away.
They hastened to Quebec and aided by
Governor Frontenac negotiated a ransom
by promising to pay two hundred pounds.
When the winter was over the party set out
for home, with an escort of French soldiers,
and reached Albany on May 11. From there
a messenger with letters was sent to Hat-
field, carrying news of the ransom to anxious
relatives. Benjamin Waite wrote as follows:

To MY Loving Friends and Kindred at Hatfield:

These few lines are to let you understand that we are
arrived at Albany now with the captives, and we now

Cynthia Whitaker Tufts 1 1

stand in need of assistance for my charges is very great and
heavy and therefore any that have any love to our condition,
let it move them to come and help us in this strait.

I pray you hasten the matter for it requireth great haste.
Stay not for the Sabbath nor the shoeing of horses. We
shall endeavor to meet you at Canterhook. We must
come very softly because of our wives and children. I
pray you hasten then, stay not night nor day for the matter
requireth great haste. Bring provisions with you for us.
Your loving kinsman

Benj. Waite

At Albany written from my own hand. As I have
been affected to yours, all that were fatherless, be affected
to me now and hasten the matter and stay not, and ease me
of my charges. You shall not need to be afraid of any

The ransom money was quickly raised, for
this letter was read in every pulpit in the
colony within two weeks. It is now set up
in bronze in Memorial Hall in Hatfield, tell-
ing with pathetic eloquence the gentleness,
the heroism, and the victory of this simple
man of resolute will and undaunted courage,
who, with one steadfast companion, faced
the perils of the untrodden wilderness on a

12 Cynthia Whitaker Tufts

trip of 1,500 miles, enduring the bitter cold
of winter and the cruel pangs of hunger and
thirst in the hope of rescuing wife, children,
and friends.

Twenty were rescued from captivity, half
of them children, among them little Captiv-
ity Jennings, born in March, and Canada
Waite, born the twenty-second of January.
Small wonder that the father wrote — "we
must travel very softly because of our wives
and children." It was Canada Waite's
daughter, Mary Smith, who married my
ancestor, Deacon Joseph Field, so furnishing
a connecting link with the heroic Benjamin.

They all seem to me heroes — these pio-
neers. The genealogical record reads like a
roll of honor.

David Whitaker: Marched to Bennington, July,

1777.

Joshua Hobart: Enlisted, May 25, 1775, served
8 mos. Later joined Independent Company,
various services.

Peter Hobart: Byram Gushing' s Company, assem-
bled at Dorchester, for sea coast defence;
called out again on 2nd alarm.

Cynthia Whitaker Tufts 13

Deacon Jonathan Field: Marched to Ticonderoga;

member of Council of Safety.
Gideon Lee: Marched to Ticonderoga, and sea

coast defence.
Jeremiah Ballard: I st Lieutenant and Captain of

Infantry; served in French and Indian Wars;

also 1776-78.
Josiah, his son: At age of fifteen served several

months in Revolutionary war in place of his

father. Marched to Ticonderoga '77; again

marched to join northern army. Various

service.

They were good citizens, farmers, dea-
cons, justices of the peace, selectmen, mem-
bers of the legislature, and, not least, fathers
of many children who, though forbidden by
their own similar circumstances to call their
parents brave, never failed to call them
blessed.

The history might seem too somber col-
ored were it not for the high lights in John
Lee's career. He was born about 1600 in
London and must have come rather early
to this country, for in 1634 this extract
appears in Massachusetts Colonial Records:
"Ordered that John Lee be whipt and fined

1 4 Cynthia Whitaker Tufts

for calling Mr. Ludlowe a false hearted
knave, a hard hearted knave and a heavy
friend."

Again in 1634, "John Lee fined 4J for
speaking reproachfully of the Governor; said
he was but a lawyer's clerk and what under-
standing had he more than himself." Also,
"for abusing a mayde of the Governor's,
pretending in the way of marriage when he
himself professed he intended none."

1 64 1. To pay Widow Hatfield 15s for her Bible, and

I OS for lying about it.
1 660. Complained of for intent to wound an ox and kill

a pig; not proven, held under suspicion.
1660. May, fined for railing speeches.
1665. Fined for contempt and for non-appearance at

court.

1667. Brought before court to answer for working in his
swamp on Sunday, but brought witnesses to prove
he was putting out a fire; discharged.

1668. Samuel Younglove deposes in a case of assault and
battery against John Lee and his son Joseph.

This record proves that John Lee's was
a free spirit that refused to be bound in the
fetters of puritanism. Today he would be

Cynthia Whitaker Tufts 15

living in wealth on the North Side, or speak-
ing from the Socialist platform, or even
marching under the flag of anarchy.

I remember only one of my grand-
parents, my father's father, Grandfather
Whitaker. Grandmother Whitaker's picture
always hung in our parlor, a sweet-faced,
frail-looking lady, wearing an embroidered
muslin cap which framed the face and was
tied under the chin. I had always thought
of her as an old woman and it was a little
shock of surprise to find, in a visit to the
cemetery this summer, that she was two
years younger than I when she died. Grand-
father Whitaker had been in his day select-
man and justice of the peace, and had also
been sent to the legislature from his dis-
trict. His contemporaries always called him
"Squire Whitaker." This, with his digni-
fied appearance, his tall frame, bright black
eyes, and snow-white hair, operated to fill
our childish minds with a feeling of awe and
respect. I do not remember that he ever
showed us affection or seemed to desire affec-
tion from us. Such was the New England

1 6 Cynthia Whitaker Tufts

reticence. One instance may serve to illus-
trate our relation. There was in my youth
in the country, as you may imagine, no
such flood of children's literature as fills
our homes today. The only periodical we
had was the Youth's Companion — a little
four-page sheet it was then, with one long
story on the front page illustrated by one
picture in the center of the page. Grand-
father Whitaker always had the first reading
of this paper. In his seat of honor in the
warmest corner of the room he would care-
fully and slowly read it from beginning to
end, seemingly quite unconscious of our
hardly concealed impatience and the hun-
gry eyes that followed his progress. We
might quarrel among ourselves oyer the
paper but there was never any question of
Grandfather's right to it. I like to remem-
ber what, I heard him say to my mother in
his last illness: "Caroline, you have been
a good daughter; you have never given me
an impatient word."

As I said I have no recollection of my
mother's father and mother. Indeed, I

Cynthia Whitaker Tufts 17

believe it was on the occasion of Grand-
father Peter Hobart's death that we moved
from Wendell, Massachusetts, my father's
birthplace, where I was born, to Leverett,
my mother's birthplace, to the farm which
Grandfather Hobart gave my mother as
her share of the property. There were
eight children in my grandfather's family,
and from my mother's occasional reminis-
cences I could reconstruct in some degree
the life on the farm — the men going at
daybreak to their work in the fields, and
returning late at night; the women often
doing the milking as well as the butter- and
cheese-making, the weaving and spinning,
soap- and candle-making, drying apples and
berries before the days of canning; cutting,
dyeing, and weaving rags for carpet for the
best room, besides preparing food daily for
the large family.

My mother in her turn had thirteen
children, eight of whom lived to grow up. I
never heard her utter a wish for a wider
sphere of usefulness or complain that her life
was futile. My mother's early home was

1 8 Cynthia WMtaker Tufts

one of large hospitality. "Peter's" seems
to have been a refuge for the poor and
needy of the neighborhood. I have often
heard my mother tell the story of the vil-
lage half-wit who came to the house one
night after long wandering about in the cold
and snow. As he seated himself before the
fireplace he remarked: "Some told me to
go one way and some another, but I thought
I'd Hne her for Peter's." At one time the
farmhouse sheltered two runaway slaves, and
there was usually some boy in the family
working as an apprentice at the cooper's
trade which my grandfather carried on in
the winter in a shop across the road from
the house.

My mother's mother was one of the Field
family — as prolific as it proved to be illus-
trious. Many of them lived in Leverett;
Eugene Field's ancestral homestead is there.
In my childhood the larger part of the popu-
lation of the town were Fields, and a curi-
ous system of nomenclature grew up. Of
course there were favorite Christian names,
the same one often appearing in different

Cynthia Whitaker Tufts 19

families. So it came about that Cynthia
the daughter of Sawyer Field would be
called "Cynthia Sawyer," while Cynthia
the daughter of Stillman Field would be
called " Cynthia Stillman." Susie Field who
married Moses Field would be known
as "Susie Moses," and Susie Field who
married Horace Field would be known as
"Susie Horace," while Mary Field, daugh-
ter of Asa Field, would be known as "Asa's
Mary," and Mary the daughter of Edward
Field as "Edward's Mary." In the neigh-
boring town there was a similarly large
kindred of Roots, and someone achieved
undying local fame with the mot, "There
are enough Fields in Leverett to set out all
the Roots in Montague."

My father and mother were educated, in
accordance with the customs of the time for
all but the few adventurous ones who went
to college, at the district school. Later my
father attended the academy at New Salem,
— an institution for which he always felt a
strong interest, fostered by annual attend-
ance at the reunions, and by the fact that

20 Cynthia Whitaker Tufts

many of his kindred lived in the town and
were connected with the academy for many
years. He taught in district schools and for
several years in a private school in New
Brunswick, New Jersey. While here he was
one night waylaid, sandbagged, and robbed.
I have thought that his frequent headaches
and not very robust health may have been
the result of the blow on the head which
so nearly proved fatal. At that time my
mother, with an enterprise not so common
among young women of that time, went
away from home to a private school in Ux-
bridge, Massachusetts, for several terms.
She too taught for a few terms, but when I
first knew my parents they had settled
down upon the farm in Leverett where
they were to spend the remainder of their
lives.

Leverett was typical of the small remote
New England village at that time. Its
people were all of New England descent, as
the immigrant had not yet found his way
so far from the large cities. Families were
more or less intimately related. The Fields,

Cynthia Whitaker Tufts 21

my mother's relatives, were, as I have said,
numerous and carried most of the responsi-
bility of the town. They were all farmers,
in fact in my early days farming was the
only industry in the town. They held town
offices and church offices, and as they were
all of them musical they played a large part
in the social life of the town. One of my
mother's uncles led the choir with his bass
viol, and four of her cousins formed the
male quartet which was much in demand
for funerals as well as less solemn functions.
We did not indeed in Leverett have sym-
phony concerts and grand opera, but we
did have singing schools and Old Folks'
concerts. To the latter all the surrounding
towns sent their best singers, while those
who were not eligible for the stage came in
large numbers to swell the audience. The
performers came in costume of the olden
time and there was a brave display of blue
broadcloth swallowtails with brass buttons,
powdered hair, changeable and plaid taffe-
tas and calashes. How grand it all seemed
to my childish imagination, and the music

22 Cynthia Whitaker Tufts

how wonderful ! One favorite tune I remem-
ber of which the words went:

The Lord descended from above.
And bowed the heavens most high;
On cherub and on cherubim
Full royally he rode;
And on the wings of mighty winds
Came flying all abroad.

How the words chased each other through
the fugue, and what weird visions of deity
my childish imagination conjured!

Another annual social event was the dona-
tion party. The theory of this was that the
minister's salary was eked out by the gifts
which people carried. In earlier days these
gifts took the form of loads of wood, baskets
of vegetables, butter, and cheese, and must
have added to the minister's comfort; but
in my childhood, though the party was still
called "donation," in reality the parsonage
became for the evening a sort of banqueting
hall where we ate up the greater part of the
food we carried with us. I think the min-
ister and his family, as on succeeding days
they ate the dreary remnants of cakes and

Cynthia Whitaker Tufts 23

pies and bread, must have felt the full force
of the Scripture, "It is more blessed to give
than to receive. "

The surprise party was also a favorite
social function. Some member of the family-
would be warned of the intended visit in
order that the party might be let into the
house secretly, and it was always a thrilling
moment when in the face of a room full of
people the host and hostess testified to
their complete surprise. This was a popular
form of entertainment among the children
as well as the parents. We went uninvited
and unchaperoned; we went early and
stayed late; we played games and paid
forfeits which involved much kissing; we
had beaux if we could get them — I may as
well confess that the getting them was to
me the most interesting feature of these
social events. Not that I was more senti-
mental — I think even then the critical fac-
ulty predominated — but I played the game
and did not intend to be beaten.

Besides the normal people who carried on
the real life of the town we had our share

24 Cynthia Whitaker Tufts

of the kind that is most likely to figure in
stories of New England. Across the road
from us lived Addison. Addison had an
impediment in both gait and speech, but
this did not interfere with his life-work of
gathering and disseminating news. Every
night after supper he limped by the house
on his way to the store, where summer and
winter the village gossips gathered to dis-
cuss affairs of nation and state, and we knew
that if anything of interest had happened
during the day we should hear it from Addi-
son the next morning. He was no less ex-
pansive about his own aflFairs than about
those of others, so we all knew when he
began to be interested in Miss Clark. He
got a new buggy and high-spirited horse,
for he said he wanted to do some. When
someone suggested that the horse was rather
too skittish, Addison gloried in the element
of danger and guessed he could " tate 'e tints
out of her."

The wooing went well for a time and the
frequent reports interested us children, but
finally all came to an end in Addison's

Cynthia Whitaker Tufts 25

graphic phrase, "She. said some sins and I
said some sins, and we twit it."

Not far from us Aunt Lyddy lived with
her niece and nephew. Edward, the nephew,
picked huckleberries and sawed wood for
his daily bread, but Aunt Lyddy never
doubted that the world owed her a living,
and almost daily we saw her and Ella start-
ing out with their carpetbag in the middle
of the forenoon bound for somebody's din-
ner table. Sometimes they would stay to
supper in the same place and sometimes
move on to pastures new. When in a fit of
pique at what she considered the grudging
hospitality of the neighbors Aunt Lyddy
took to her bed she did not cease to levy
tribute on my mother's generosity. Ella
appeared every morning with dishes for
milk and a "little cream to put on Lyddy's
tater," and carried home with her not infre-
quently in addition to the cream and milk
the tater itself or its equivalent. To the
stereotyped question: "How is Aunt Lyddy
this morning?" the almost invariable reply
was, "She's pretty much down today at the

26 Cynthia Whitaker Tufts

heel, she is." Aunt Lyddy used to be at
the point of death at intervals, and Ella
would be sent out in the middle of the night
to summon the neighbors to attend her
decease. After several false alarms others
refused to go, but my mother could not
bring herself to do so. One night when
the summons came mother was not able
to go, so my father went instead, and Aunt
Lyddy was so angry at what she must have
considered the final desertion of all her
natural audience that she did come nearer
to death than in all the years before.

Mrs. Glenn was another character who
seems amusing in the retrospect. She was
a widow and lived alone, allowing her only
daughter to come to visit her once a year.
She came sometimes to help in our family
while the children were still small, made
big pans of doughnuts, and fed the babies
catnip tea. It was her proud boast that
she had been brought up in a minister's
family, a fact which made her a judge not
only of preaching but of the exemplification
of preaching. She was also something of

Cynthia Whitaker Tufts 27

a philosopher. I remember when one day I
suggested some arrangement that I thought
mother would like she grandly set me aside
and voiced the eternal conflict between the
sexes as she replied: "I'll ask your father;
men's cal'lations and women's cal'lations is
different." She used to come to prayer-
meeting in the schoolhouse, holding in each
hand a candle stuck in a potato for a can-
dlestick to light our path to piety. She
always went to church and sat in the amen
pew with a posy of dill or caraway or "boy's
love" and cinnamon roses in her black-
mitted hands, and it never made any difference
to her whether she got there before or after
the sermon if she was in time to stand for
the benediction. She lived alone, growing
more and more recluse and miserly with the
years. In my youth I remember the neigh-
bors gave her a surprise party and pre-
sented her with a dictionary. She at once
lighted a candle, took it and the book into
the kitchen, and sat down to read, paying
no further attention to her guests except
to return their goodnight when they left.

28 Cynthia Whitaker Tufts

In later years she allowed no one to come
into the house or even to pass the yard gate
if she could help it, and after her death the
neighbors found an ax behind every door of
the house, kept perhaps with some idea of
protecting the six hundred dollars which
my mother found sewed in her dress skirt
when she died after a short illness at our
house. It would have been a bold burglar
who would have tried to get into the house
past the array of kitchen ranges, pots, ket-
tles, flatirons, and tinware with which the
tiny rooms were filled.

Then there was Austin, the gentle bache-
lor who lived in two rooms over the store
and carried the mail bag back and forth to
the railroad station twice daily for years.
Too shy to sit at table with us he was quite
at ease when he had his beloved fiddle under
his chin and forgetful of his audience would
play through his rather limited repertoire,
^metimes singing to his own accompaniment:

Oh tell me where the dove has flown

To build her downy nest.
And I will roam this world all o'er

To win her to my breast.

Cynthia Whitaker Tufts 29

By meek religion's humble cot

She builds her downy nest,
O seek that sweet secluded spot

And win her to thy breast.

The closing number, which we children
never failed to call for, given with many
contortions of the body and flourishes of
the bow, was a demonstration of "how
Uncle Lander used to do it."

The kitchen, scrupulously clean, was the
center of the house and family life, for
though the parlor was a beautiful room and
it was our delight to adorn it, it was remote
and cold in winter. The kitchen was warm
and convenient to the back door which was
the one of the five entrances to our house
that was most used. The neighbors came
often to the kitchen to smoke a friendly
pipe and to talk. What did those neigh-
bors talk about I wonder ? Whatever it
was it formed a pleasant accompaniment to
our work and play, dominoes, fox and geese,
and jack straws, or the cutting of apples for
drying, seeding raisins for tomorrow's cake,
or the endless over-and-over sewing of long

30 Cynthia Whitaker Tufts

sheets and the hemming of towels. We
looked upon our elders with great respect.
There were many who came a-visiting, stop-
ping on their way through the town to eat
a meal with us or to stay overnight. It
never made any difference how many came
or how unexpectedly, there was always a
hearty welcome. I remember especially the
times when the General Conference of the
churches was held in Leverett. We always
entertained our share of the delegates. I
looked upon them with mingled awe and re-
spect, though their personal appearance did
not always measure up to my ideal of what the
representatives of the Most High should be.
The minister seemed a person remote
from ordinary affairs, and when he came to
call I always fled the house; but it seemed
that I could never get so far away that my
mother through her willing emissaries, my
brothers and sisters, could not find and
bring me back. There was always a "sea-
son of prayer" before he left, and I hated
that, for it seemed part of the untactful
effort on the part of my elders, of which I

Cynthia Whitaker Tufts 31

was all the time conscious, to get me to
repent of my sins and become converted.
I could not get conviction of sin, and the
God whom I was required to love was even
farther removed from the possibility of
inspiring affection than his representatives
on earth. I was always skeptical. My atti-
tude toward the dogmas presented for belief
was: How do you know that is so ? Many
of them seemed to me, even then, irrational
and unintelligent. I was open to con-
viction but demanded proof. I went on
attending church and Sunday school, which
in my day was an unmoral if not demoral-
izing agency — ^learning hymns and psalms
and gospels by heart. I was overwhelmed
by vague aspirations and longings as I read
aloud to myself, under the apple trees on a
Sunday afternoon, from the Book of Job or
the Song of Songs.

Churchgoing was no less a social than a
religious function. The church was a barn-
like structure, beautiful in summer with its
windows wide open to the blue sky, the
birds, and the trees, but cold and dreary

32 Cynthia Whitaker Tufts

in winter. It was theoretically heated by
two box stoves, one on each side of the
room at the end, and the little intervals of
comfort, when after the long morning serv-
ice and Sunday school we gathered around
these stoves to eat luncheon and enjoy the
friendly warmth before the beginning of the
afternoon service, were so pleasant by con-
trast that I recall them more often than the
hour-long sermon and proportionally long
prayers. It was during one of these ser-
mons that Mrs. Glenn, disturbed by the
frequent expectorations of a visiting minis-
ter who was in the pulpit, rose from her
seat in the amen corner and picking up
the box half-filled with sawdust with which
every pew was furfiished, marched with it
up to the half-dozen steps which led to
the high pulpit platform and placing it
in front of the preacher returned to her seat
unruffled. No one in the audience showed
surprise; none of the children smiled; so
perfect were our manners!

The church and the school were the two
social centers of the town. There were no

Cynthia Whitaker Tufts 23

parents' associations in those days, and no
discussion or criticism of methods of instruc-
tion, but parents were frequent and compla-
cent visitors in the school, and especially on
the last day of the term formed an admir-
ing audience which stimulated us to perfec-
tion. We attained perfection by the very
simple process of going through the program
for the great last day every day for a week
before the end of the term. As a result
even the most stupid could answer correctly
if the teacher did her part and put the right
question. We always cleaned the school-
house the night before the last day, scrub-
bing the floor and benches and washing the
windows, and decorated it with oak leaves
and flowers, or ground pine and hemlock
branches, and no student on the campus
ever looked forward to his graduation with
more eager hearts than were ours in antici-
pation of the ceremonial Last Day.

In the school which I attended two gen-
erations were taught by the same prim spin-
ster, Cynthia B., sister of Addison. The little
red schoolhouse was old and dilapidated,

34 Cynthia Whitaker Tufts

and in the winter both wind and snow
came in unhindered through the rents
that time had made. After devotional exer-
cises, which consisted of reading in turn two
verses from the Bible, every hand would go
up as though instinctively, and every mouth
opened for the same request, "May I go to
the fire ?" The fire hummed in a huge
rectangular box stove which stood in the
middle of the room. It was usually red-hot
by the time we surrounded it, and before
many minutes the smoke of sacrifice would
rise to heaven as we pushed and crowded
each other in the cheer of good comrade-
ship till woolen garments brushed against
the glowing surface. We were not allowed
to speak to each other during school hours
without permission (next to "May I go to
the fire ?" I think the most importunate
petition was, "May I speak ?") and any
infraction of this rule was punished by
depriving the offender of the five-minute
morning and afternoon recess for a week,
but when we were three deep round the
stove we knew that rules were made only

Cynthia Whitaker Tufts 35

to be broken. Cynthia B. was a rigid dis-
ciplinarian and in ordinary circumstances
little escaped her all-seeing eye. Was any
one so brazen as to deny a wrongdoing she
would march up to him and, seizing the
forelock firmly between thumb and finger,
press the head closely back till dislocation
threatened and the offender was obliged to
look her squarely in the face. In such case
it was a hardened sinner who would not
break down and confessing his sins take the
punishment. There was an elaborate sys-
tem of punishment ranging from standing
on the floor ten minutes to an hour, staying in
from recess from three days to a week, stay-
ing after school to learn and recite a lesson,
feruling, and switching. In the latter case
the offender cut his own switches and the
flogging was done before the whole school.
I have in mind a picture of one boy, who
resisted flogging, dragged by his hair to
the middle of the room and finally taking
the punishment with white face and set
teeth. Any resistance of authority was uni-
versally condemned by our parents, and in

^6 Cynthia Whitaker Tufts

many cases we were told that if we got a
licking at school we should get another at
home.

There were all grades in the school, and
from fifteen to twenty classes recited each
half-day. I used to listen to the recitations
of the older ones and could parse and
analyze a sentence long before . I studied
grammar, and was familiar with the technique
of multiplication and long division before I
was through with the "f of 24 is ^ of how
many times 7 ?" of Colburn's Intellectual.
After we got through the primary work I
don't remember that my sister and I ever
recited much. We would decide at the begin-
ning of the term what we wanted to study,
get the books, and begin. The teacher would
inquire from day to day how far we had
gone, give help if we needed it, and tell
us to go on as far as we could for the next
day. As a result of this system applied for
twenty-four weeks in the year I was ready
at twelve for the high school, much better
grounded in the three R's than the child
of today but quite ignorant of the exist-

Cynthia Whitaker Tufts 37

ence even of much with which he is famil-
iar. It was several years before I found
out that Paradise Lost, which had supplied
the grammar class with sentences for analy-
sis, was really a wonderful poem of surpass-
ing grandeur, though I somehow managed
to read considerable during those years.
The Sunday-school library furnished Uttle
but the "Elsie" books or their equivalent;
there was no public library and few books
in the house, but I got hold of some vol-
umes of Scott and Dickens. I read Dred,
The Caxtons, Thaddeus of Warsaw, Scottish
Chiefs, and Last Days of Pompeii. The
Fall of Babylon and the Bible supplemented
the Sunday-school library for Sunday read-
ing. Scottish Chiefs came into my hands
from some source on a New England fast
day. Not quite sure whether it would be
considered suitable reading for that day I
hid myself in the angle of the shed door
and there, warmed by the April sunshine
and enthralled by the heroism and sufferings
of those brave men and beautiful women,
I remained indifferent to the intermittent

38 Cynthia Whitaker Tufts

search on the part of mother and sisters to
discover my whereabouts. Shakespeare and
Gates Ajar were given me. Tennyson I
bought with money given me as prize for a
large and beautiful collection of wild flowers
which I made and took to the county
fair one fall. Beautiful editions of Thomas
Moore and Paradise Lost were given me by
an admirer. Daniel Deronda and Theophras-
tus Such were read in paper edition, and my
lamp burned till early morning as I read the
story of that most womanly of women Jane
Eyre. I did not go at once to the high school
— that was the unusual rather than the obvi-
ous thing to do — but started on my wage-
earning career. They cast the bantlings on
the rocks early in those days, but I must say I
found few sharp edges and always everywhere
I found strong friends and helping hands.

My first experience as a wage-earner was
with a life-long friend of my mother's in
whose family I had the freedom and compan-
ionship of a daughter and gave a daughter's
service for more than the usual pecuniary
compensation in such cases, namely the

Cynthia Whitaker Tufts 39

sum of one dollar a week. I was at this
time quite competent for fine ironing, could
get the simple meals and do a little cooking,
and delighted in ordering and beautifying
the house. I stayed there ten weeks, but
for me the time was measured in terms of
dollars. I saw a radiant vision of myself on
the way to church in a white dress under the
beautiful green parasol which the money
would buy, but alas! stout shoes for myself
and copper toes for the younger children
swallowed up my fortune. This was the
first great tragedy of my life.

About this time one of the townsmen
began a small florist's business, growing
seeds for market, and my sister and I
undertook the making of the little paper
bags in which they were sold. This we
did at home in odd moments when we
were not helping mother with housework,
sewing, or babies. We had the munificent
sum of one cent per hundred for making
these bags, but I seem to have no recollec-
tion of how we invested this or the equally
large sums which we must have earned

40 Cynthia Whitaker Tufts

from the braiding of palm-leaf braid at
one and one-quarter cents per yard. I do
remember that I invested six cents from
the latter earnings in a blue ribbon "catch-
my-lad" for my personal adornment.

My next wage-earning adventure outside
of home was in the pocket-book industry.
I went to work for a man who got his mate-
rial for wallets from a large factory near
by and made it up in his own home. He
and his widowed daughter both worked at
the job. Later my sister joined me there.
We worked in a room which formed the
family sitting-room. The hours were long
— from half-past seven to six with a half-
hour at noon — but we were well fed. We
shared in the family life and in the social
life of the town and the pleasant neigh-
borhood doings, which brought frequent
callers to relieve the tedium of the day and
young people and parties to make the eve-
nings gay. The daughter was old enough
to be my mother, and the sincere friend-
ship between us lasted till her death. When
the mother of the family died the business

Cynthia Whitaker Tufts 41

was given up, the place sold, and my sister
and I went home.

It must have been at this time that
we conducted a dressmaker's shop, making
dresses for ourselves, for mother, and for the
neighborhood. We managed somehow to
know something of prevailing styles and
were authorities on the subject. I remem-
ber making a dress and jacket for one
of the girls in the neighborhood and how
seriously I considered the question of asking
three dollars for it. My chronology is far
from exact, but it must have been at this
time, while I was fourteen, that I took
the teacher's examination held in our town
hall and was appointed to the school in
my mother's old home district, known as
"Rattlesnake Gutter." Here, I suppose,
I applied the educational methods used in
my own instruction. I remember, however,
that I did not use any of the big bunch of
hickory rods which my uncle cut and placed
rather ostentatiously behind the schoolroom
door. It had been freely predicted that I
should have trouble with two of the big

42 Cynthia Whttaker Tufts

boys, but a little disagreement at the begin-
ning of the term was amicably settled and
we were good friends ever after.

It was about this time that Mr. Hersey,
of Hingham, Massachusetts, who as a boy
had lived with my Grandfather Hobart
and worked in the cooper's shop, had the
thought of paying back to the town of
Leverett some part of the debt which he
felt he owed to my grandfather's family.
He had retired from active business with a
competence, some part of which he now
put to use in the building of a box factory
in Leverett. When this opened many of
the young people of the town went to work
in it, making the little oval boxes which
were then used for packing figs and also
the larger round salt boxes. It was a small
business, employing only about fifty hands,
in those early days rather more girls than
men, but it kept the young people from leav-
ing town. We worked at benches placed
on each side of a long, narrow, well-lighted
room. Working conditions were ideal and
the work heavy or light, about as we chose

Cynthia Whitaker Tufts 43

to make it, i.e., it was done by the piece.
Fifteen cents for a hundred completed boxes
was the rate and the day's work ranged
from five hundred to fifteen hundred accord-
ing to individual ability. "The Shop " soon
became the center of social activities. We
inaugurated a debating society which met
fortnightly. There were spelling schools and
sociables, and during the winter we presented
a series of tableaux and one rather ambi-
tious play, of which I remember little except
that I was the noble and self-sacrificing
wife of a profligate husband who was re-
deemed to a life of virtue by the beauty of
my character and my patient endurance.
I think this is the only great event of my
life which had no influence on my character
— the only experience which has been of no
use in later life.

I carried through a well-arranged course in
history and literature this year. Mr. Hersey
proved a stimulating friend. He would often
take the vacant seat beside my bench and
talk to me of his experiences, ' his acquaint-
ances, his reading, and of what the world held

44 Cynthia Whitaker Tufts

for those who had the courage to take it.
The year in the shop I suppose had quite as
much educational value as a year in the high
school in the adjoining town of Amherst,
which I entered at seventeen.

My next older sister had had two years
in the school and was now working in the
insurance and real estate office of Judge
Thomas. There was a chance for me to
go into his family and work for my board
and I had money enough for the small tui-
tion which was charged. So I took the
entrance examination and was duly entered.
I stayed here a year, working mornings and
nights and Saturdays, studying in the eve-
ning or if necessary before breakfast in the
morning.

The next year my sister and I boarded
ourselves, living in two rooms and doing
light housekeeping, helped out by a weekly
box of provisions from home. In spite of
— probably because of — my various outside
activities I led the school of one hundred
and twenty-five in scholarship for two years
and two terms, with the exception of two

Cynthia Whitaker Tufts 45

terms. My money hadgiven out, of course,
before the end of the second year and I
now decided that I could not any longer be
dependent upon anyone. So I left school
and went to work in the large Florence
silk mills. Here again I found what Would
I think today be called ideal conditions for
work, and good friends. I think the girls
in the mills would compare favorably with
an equal number of university girls, and
there were a half-dozen of my acquaint-
ances of unusual refinement and beauty. It
was against the rules to have any books in
the mills, but the foreman must sometimes
have been aware of the volumes many of
us kept concealed in a drawer, surrepti-
tiously snatching many a gem of wisdom,
learning many a poem. The work con-
sisted in winding silk and twist on spools
ready for market. Piecework was quite re-
munerative for those who were quick with
hand and brain, but new hands did not
get much of it to do, so when I was offered
a school in a nearby town I took it. By
this time I was aware that the pedagogical

46 Cynthia Whitaker Tufts

method of my school days was bad, but had
not formulated a new one, so my two terms'
work in this school was largely experimental
and did more for me than for the children
educationally. I cannot even suppose that
the moral reforms I brought about were
lasting — nearly all the children, girls and
boys, swore habitually and inevitably when
excited or angry, and the schoolyard was
indeed a blasphemous place. My commit-
teeman said he did not care whether I
taught them anything if I would stop the
swearing, but I cannot think that the brief
interval of restraint had any permanent
effect. Here for the first time in my life I
came in contact with old-time Methodism.
I went to church and shall never forget the
spectacle of the fat, dark-complexioned,
curly-haired preacher kneeling in prayer on
the very edge of the platform, yelling at
the top of his lungs so violently that the
perspiration ran in rivulets over his empur-
pled countenance. It is perhaps superflu-
ous to state that my first class-meeting
was also my last.

Cynthia Whitaker Tufts 47

My sister was still in Amherst and wrote
me now that there was a place in the post-
office I could have if I wanted it, and I
gladly returned to a pleasanter environ-
ment. I was on duty in the office during
rush hours, and at other times worked in
the insurance office of Judge Thomas. The
friendship of Judge Thomas and his wife,
and that of Mr. Jameson, who was post-
master, and his wife, meant much to my
sister and myself, making' possible as it did
a wider acquaintance and some slight degree
of intimacy with the best people of a cul-
tured New England village.

I am sure no school board of today would
consider a person with my lack of training
as a candidate for a position in a high
school, but when the prospective principal
of a newly established high school in West-
port, Connecticut, was looking about for
an assistant Mr. Jameson recommended
me for the position. Westport was a small
town which had up to this time been desti-
tute of the means to higher education. So
when Uncle Horace Staples built a high-school

48 Cynthia Whitaker Tufts

building it was announced that school
would open in the fall of 1884. The ap-
plicants for admission were numerous and
varied, ranging in age from thirteen to
twenty or over. The building was not done
when the school opened, but this did not
dampen the principal's enthusiasm. We
examined applicants for admission in the
town hall and held school there for the few
weeks before we moved into the high-school
building. How culture did hum that year!
The principal organized a singing class and
a boys' debating club. He had a mineral
cabinet made and started a collection. He
rehearsed boys and girls in public speaking,
and there were fortnightly declamation days
and occasional more pretentious programs,
when we studied some author and recited
his poems and read essays upon him. We
held sociables and gave entertainments to
which the town came in a body. When
the girls' literary society, the "P. L. C,"
gave an entertainment in the early spring
the house was filled half an hour before the
time, and we had to walk over the heads

Cynthia Whitaker Tufts 49

of the people to light the lamps. Some
time during the winter a play was given,
and the principal got Professor Bailey to
come from Yale to give a reading. At
first there were some who looked askance
at the new enterprise, but while there was
almost no one when the school opened who
would take the teachers to board, before
the end of the first term we could have
boarded where we chose. We were in fact
the center of the town's interest and played
the one man to almost continuous applause.
At the end of two years here I decided
to go to college. At this time there was an
arrangement at Smith College by which such
people as I could be admitted without exami-
nation as "specials." In recent years this
class of students has been cold-shouldered,
but in the eighties we were treated kindly
and allowed to do much as we pleased.
As my class officer said when I presented my
twenty-one hours a week to her, "Specials
are allowed to kill themselves." During the
previous year I had taken a correspondence
course in Anglo-Saxon with my first principal,

50 Cynthia Whitaker Tufts

so I continued along this line in college,
in fact took about all the courses in Eng-
lish that were offered, from Beowulf to the
modern novel, some history, logic, and Ger-
man. I was so out of the habit of study
that it was hard to play much of a part
among those who were masters of the tech-
nique. I was somewhat surprised to receive
the faculty recommendation to Alpha which
was followed by election to its membership.
Before the end of the year I decided to
try for a degree, overestimating its value,
as most do who haven't one. I thought I
could finish the regular work in two years
more, but if I meant to take a degree I
must pass the entrance examination and be
enrolled as a regular student. This meant
work in Latin and mathematics. I had read
part of the required Caesar before leaving
high school. During the summer vacation
I read Cicero and Virgil, with much help
from my brother and from my first princi-
pal, and reviewed mathematics. I passed
the Latin examination, was predestined to
fail in mathematics, but was nevertheless

Cynthia Whitaker Tufts 51

entered as a regular student. I had had
a term's work in French in the high school,
had read some by myself, had indeed under-
taken to translate a French history for
printing, and had submitted chapters to
the publisher. They never got any far-
ther, but I profited by the experience if the
world did not. I had also had two summer
terms at the Summer School of Modern
Languages of Amherst, one spent in study
and one in flirting and frivolity. This made
it possible to take advanced French and to
pass off Freshman-year French. I believe
I could have finished the course creditably
at the end of the third year. But impor-
tant events had transpired during the year;
also the debt that I was incurring looked
large; also I realized that the chief value
of another year would be in the commercial
value of the degree. So I gave up the third
year.

This summer I undertook my rashest
enterprise up to this time. The person en-
gaged to teach Anglo-Saxon in the Amherst
Summer School was not able to keep the

52 Cynthia Whitaker Tufts

engagement, and Professor Montague, com-
ing in need to Smith College, was sent to
me, and I agreed to undertake the job.
I was to teach whatever classes were formed,
and the compensation was the privileges of
the school. I was appalled when I went to
the class in Beowulf to find a dozen or so
more or less venerable professors and teach-
ers waiting for me. However I followed the
method in vogue among college teachers
and took out all the books the library-
contained on the subject, thus depriving
the class of any other source of information
— and how I worked ! The privileges of the
school were little to me because of Beowulf.
In my other class there was one devoted
student. Professor Ott. It did not take
him or me long to find out that I did not
know much about any of the period before
Chaucer, but we spent a pleasant hour daily
over the work and parted amicably.

During the summer a position in a girls'
school in Englewood, New Jersey, was
offered to me. I'm sure the year here was
much more valuable than the year in col-

Cynthia Whitaker Tufts ^2

lege would have been. The two principals
were among the most lovely and desirable
women I have ever known and gave friend-
ship with both hands. We boarded in the
one hotel in the town, there being in that
aristocratic suburb of New York no private
families to whom we could go who would
have us. The food was so poor and so
scanty that we often had to satisfy our
desire for more and better by reading the
cookbook aloud as we sat around the fire
after dinner, and when my first principal
came from New Haven on a visit and took
me in to New York for the day and eve-
ning, the first question as we gathered again
round the fire after his departure was not,
"Tell us all about him!" but, "What did
you have for dinner in New York ?" and
that dinner fed us many times. We led
the regular convent life of teachers in such
institutions. We had no masculine society
except that of the principals of the boys'
school in the town, who shared our fate at
the hotel. In fact no society at all, for the
call from an occasional parent or the yearly

54 Cynthia Whitaker Tufts

invitation to the minister's could not come
under that head. I stayed there two years
and in that time received two calls and was
invited out once to the minister's and once
to the home of one of the girls who was
fond of me. There were four college-bred
women in the school besides the two princi-
pals, who were not college bred. They
lived as cloistered a life as I did. I men-
tion this so particularly because there has
always seemed to me to be something so
anomalous in the complete social isolation
of the woman teacher.

From Englewood and its cloistered joys
I gladly returned to Amherst to act as my
brother's assistant when he was appointed
to the principalship of the high school
there. This was such a pleasant year that
it furnished little historical material. In
the following August I was married to my
first principal.

THE LATER YEARS

By J. H. T.

Slightly more than half the years of the
life which closed January ii, 1920, are
included in the preceding story. As we
usually envisage relative values, those ear-
lier years would naturally be thought the
less interesting half. The latter half knew,
in wider measure, travel and reading and con-
tacts with people of kindred tastes and sig-
nificant activities; it knew wifehood and
motherhood; it ministered to weakness and
sickness in the aged, and reviewed youth
with its joys and sorrows, pathos and humor,
as it shared the experiences of growing child-
hood. But the group for whom the sketch
was first written could more easily complete
than begin the story, for the later years
followed lines of more common experience.
And the larger group of friends to whom
this now comes will not need any detailed
narrative or elaborate analysis. Yet men-
tion of some activities and traits may be
ss

56 Cynthia Whitaker Tufts

welcome if it may help to recall or to fill out
the impression which many received from
the personality of Cynthia Tufts, and a few
formal details may first be given record.

Cynthia Hobart Whitaker was born
April I, i860, in Wendell, Massachusetts,
the daughter of Augustus Greenleaf and
Caroline (Hobart) Whitaker. The "Grand-
father Whitaker" of whom she speaks was
Jonathan; his father David, who "marched
to Bennington" from Lancaster, Massachu-
setts, married a Martha Wilder of that
town. The Whitaker line has not been
traced farther than David to my knowledge.
The maternal grandfather, Peter Hobart,
descended from the well-known Hingham
stock of which the Reverend Peter, who
sent five sons to Harvard College in the
early days, was one of the most notable.
The Field line, from the immigrant Zech-
ariah of Hartford, lived from the first in the
Connecticut Valley, and several generations
lie buried in the Leverett cemetery.

In physical appearance and perhaps in
mental traits,Cynthia seemed to inherit rather

Cynthia Whitaker Tufts c^-j

from her father's hne. Her mother had
light hair and ruddy complexion, and was
of larger frame than Cynthia, who in all
her earlier life was very slight, and whose
rather pale complexion was set off by very
dark hair. Cynthia's mother was a warm-
hearted woman who was greatly in demand
in the whole neighborhood in time of sick-
ness. Doctors were frequently unavailable,
and nurses were not as yet heard of in her
earlier life, and many a Leverett mother
when bringing her child into the world sent
for Mrs. Whitaker to be with her. She was
an interesting conversationalist, with clear
and definite memories of people, sound judg-
ment, and shrewd insight into character.
Her warm heart did not blind her eyes,
and one might find in Cynthia's own un-
flinching judgments of situations a reminder
of her mother's sterling good sense and
veracity.

Cynthia — or Tena, as she was known in
her family, and indeed usually signed her-
self in earlier life — combined as a child
two natures which are perhaps not often

58 Cynthia Whitaker Tufts

bound up together. On the one hand, as
her story shows, she was unusually deft
and quick to learn any craft, and had the
mental confidence that goes naturally with
such perfect adjustment of eye, hand, and
brain. "I used to feel that I could do any-
thing," I have heard her say. On the other
hand, she was as a child and indeed through
all her life almost abnormally sensitive to
social environment and hesitant as to her
part in it. She felt benumbed, her wit and
animation shriveled, if she even suspected
lack of approval. She needed warmth of
appreciation if she was to be at her best.
She never feared judgment upon her clothes;
she felt sure of herself wherever it was
a matter of line and color, for this went
naturally with the first part of her. But
to prepare a paper or to contemplate any
somewhat formal social occasion required a
summoning of all her sense of duty and some-
times brought on physical distress, though I
doubt if any but her most intimate friends
suspected the truth. This dread of facing
novel contacts of a somewhat formal sort

Cynthia Whitaker Tufts 59

persisted to the very end. It was indeed
aggravated by a deafness which, shght in
early middle life, became more of a handi-
cap in general conversation in later years
and greatly interfered with pleasure in pub-
lic addresses or the play.

The marriage with which the preceding
story closes took place on August 25, 1891,
and was followed by a year in Europe, chiefly
in Germany. I had accepted a position in
the just founded University of Chicago, and
a year abroad appealed to us as at once a
professional necessity and a delightful pos-
sibility of travel. We had little money and
practiced all the economies of American stu-
dents of that day. But the Harz and the
Black Forest, Oxford and the Lake Coun-
try, are for those who walk. Cathedrals,
pictures, music, are likewise for those who
see and hear. Coming after a series of
years of unremitting work, frequently done
under strain, and coming before the new
demands which the home in Chicago and
the university life there would make, the
year, which was spent chiefly in Berlin

6o Cynthia Whitaker Tufts

and Freiburg, was a healing and beneficent
interlude.

The great World's Fair so near at hand
made it somewhat difficult to find quarters
that first year in Chicago, but the modest
flat in which home life began extended hos-
pitality to many, and as a matter for the
amazement of present-day beginners, it
may be recorded that expert housewifery
kept the food budget for the month within
eighteen dollars and enabled us, out of our
two thousand to pay back the six hundred
we had borrowed the year before. And if
the meals were simple and the furnishing
likewise, this left the more time for the
central business of the year — the transla-
tion of Windelband's History of Philosophy
in which my wife not only wrote all the
copy but gave constant criticism and help
toward making the English more readable,
until the last desperate spurt at the finish
completed the index at four o'clock one
morning as we sat amid our unpacked house-
hold goods in the new house to which we
moved the next summer.

Cynthia Whitaker Tufts 6i

It was a happy year — that first year of
the University — as many of the "charter
members" would agree. Some new addi-
tion to the University resources or plans
was likely to be on the front page of the
morning newspaper almost any day. Presi-
dent Harper was not only intent upon the
growth of the institution, but was assiduous
in promoting acquaintance among the newly
gathered members of the Faculty. Social
gatherings, official or informal, were fre-
quent. Like others of the younger set, we
felt in awe of the head professors whose
names we had seen on title-pages of German
translations in Berlin, or who had come to
Chicago with the prestige of college and
university presidencies resigned. But there
were many of us younger people, and after
all we found that in the spirit of the place
"What are you doing ?" was even more
important than "What have you done ?"

And finally, in the last months of that
first year, came the enchantment of a White
City by the Lake. Before the multitude
discovered and thronged the grounds, in

62 Cynthia Whitaker Tufts

the June evenings when it was not yet a
great fair but only a wondrous picture, we
spent many hours in the Court of Honor
where the water gave back the lights, and
the peristyle lured the eye out over the
lake, and the stars seemed a part of it all.
Other years tend in memory to blur, but
that first year was often recalled.

The immediately following years were
notable chiefly for the birth of daughter
and son and the new cares and joys which
came with them. These years were signifi-
cant also for the coming of the Deweys from
Ann Arbor and soon after of the others who
united to make up a singularly harmoni-
ous department of philosophy. Besides the
friends of the very first years and this
departmental group, a third group which
meant much to the later years was the
Book Club. Its membership included seven
famihes. The occupations of the men —
teacher, physician, lawyer, engineer, pub-
lisher — and the varied activities and tastes of
the women furnished many angles for con-
sidering not only books but affairs and life-

Cynthia Whitaker Tufts Gt^

problems. Monthly meetings enabled its
members to dispense with formal barriers,
take up the threads where they were dropped
at the last meeting, and talk frankly and inti-
mately about what seemed most worth while.
On the externals of these Chicago years
it is not necessary to dwell. The earlier of
them were passed in various dwellings with
the joys and hardships of the teacher's lot.
The maintenance of a second center in
the East interfered to some extent with
the maintenance of domestic arrangements
in Chicago. The last nine years had a
more stable character in our own house
at 5551 University Avenue. Three epi-
sodes, however, deserve mention because
of the opportunity they afforded for delight
in natural beauty, particularly in warmer
southern skies and semi-tropical vegetation
— a visit to Spain, Italy, and France with her
friend Mrs. Mead in 1910, to Miami in 1916
with the Meads, and to California with her
family in the summer of 191 5. Mr. Mead
in his appreciation has spoken of the feelings
which the visits to Spain and Miami brought

64 Cynthia Whitaker Tufts

out. California's sea and mountain, forests,
flowers, waterfalls, and wide horizons all
appealed to her so strongly that it seemed a
pity we could not, as she half jestingly pro-
posed, find a job there and remain.

Although the life in Chicago occupied the
greater portion of the years after 1892, a
considerable part of many of them was
claimed by a home in western Massachu-
setts not far from the town in which the
early years were spent. The home there
meant three different things. It meant the
beauty of a New England hill town — tints
of spring or autumn foliage, odors of June
or later summer, apple blossoms, laurel,
roses, and garden flowers, drives over the
hills through shaded roads, gorgeous sun-
sets, and blue skies. It meant, in the sec-
ond place, friends — family and early school
friends in Leverett and Amherst — and a
group of my own early friends who, by an
unusual fortune, had remained in my native
town and rejoiced in Cynthia's coming
among them. Lastly it meant ministry to

Cynthia Whitaker Tufts 65

my parents and particularly to my mother,
who survived my father nine years, and
found in later life all the companionship
and affection of a daughter. The visits
to Monson, where most of the summers
in the East were spent, were not ordinary
outings; they were a second focus of inter-
ests, affections, and work. They began in
1896 with a nine months' continuous stay
in a rented house near my parents' home-
stead, and several following spring and sum-
mer seasons were spent in similar quarters
or with my parents; but after the death of
my father in 1901, and the breaking up of
the old home, we fitted up a cottage in an
apple orchard on a hillside which belonged
to my father's old farm, and here more than
anywhere else we gained the sense of inti-
macy and affection for surroundings which
one shapes at least in part according to his
heart's desire. We did little to the dwell-
ing except to build a fireplace and add a
spacious porch; the shrubbery and garden
flowers that we planted and tended were
limited to those that would give us summer

66 Cynthia Whitaker Tufts

beauty; but the iris, lilacs, roses, peonies,
syringas, and woodbine were kind to us, and
the entrancing whiteness and fragrance of
the apple orchard stretching from our very
door — if we chanced to be there in the
beauty of May — were a sensation to recall
many times in the succeeding months when
Monson had been exchanged for gray and
smoky days in Chicago.

The spot that Cynthia loved best of
all was not one that we made, but one
that nature had made for her. The "pine
hill," a short steep climb just at the door,
covered with strongly odorous yellow pine,
was prized both for itself and as a refuge.
For there was little domestic help to be had
for a summer household; the migraine which
had been a more or less frequent companion
from earliest years was likely to be sum-
moned by fatigue, and at times the mere
presence of anyone else seemed a burden.
Then she took a pillow and a book and none
followed her, for we knew she wanted to be
alone. On the thick carpet of pine needles
which had been gathering year after year.

Cynthia Whitaker Tufts 67

and was pierced here and there by sprigs
of green pipsissewa or ground pine or by
the delicate Indian pipes, visited only by
bird neighbors, she found refreshment for
body and spirit and returned to take up her
task again.

Her ministry to my mother was tender,
strong, and beautiful. In early years my
mother had been an ardent, highly capable,
and successful teacher. At the age of thirty-
three she was married to my father, then
principal of Monson Academy, who soon
left that institution on account of a break-
down in health, and later had boys in his
home to prepare for college or business.
The strain of the care of this large house-
hold caused my mother's health to give way
in middle life and complete vigor was
never again regained, although there was a
resumption of many former activities both
in the home and without. But after 1896
there was a serious further loss, and from
1904 until her release six years later ar-
thritis rendered her unable to walk or stand.
Her sister lived with her all the year round

68 Cynthia Whitaker Tufts

in the cottage which we fitted up, but the
coming of Cynthia and the grandchildren
brought renewed cheer and brightness every
springtime and was eagerly anticipated.
Every morning after breakfast Cynthia
came in to my mother, sometimes with a
single blossom, sometimes with a handful of
bloom fresh-gathered, and made the day
begin with good cheer. The letters which
the postman brought were opened and the
many Hnes of kinship and friendship were
kept alive. The morning was likely to be
full of hard work but at dinner we were all
together again. Then after a resting time
Cynthia was in the habit of reading aloud,
for which she had a singularly well-adapted
voice, or sometimes there would be intimate
talk in which the elder and nearly helpless
though mentally alert woman was heartened
or comforted by the sympathy and steady
poise of the younger. And finally there was
always the brief word of goodnight, some-
times with the recital of one of the many bits
of poetry which Cynthia's memory treasured.
Cynthia's presence always seemed to bring

Cynthia Whitaker Tufts 69

freshness and beauty, and her wit and playful
raillery dispelled many a cloud of low spirits.

The last illness was first diagnosed as
diabetes in June, although certain symptoms
appeared earlier and might have aroused
suspicion had they not been masked by dis-
comforts of other sorts to which she had long
been habituated. At first the response to
treatment encouraged us to hope for control
of the disease. But the improvement was
not maintained and it proved to be one of
the rare cases for which no treatment at
present known to the medical profession is
eflFective. Fortunately in this disease there
is little physical pain and reading is possible.
But the patient is likely to know from week
to week whether there is gain or loss, and
the repetition of one failure after another
was inevitably a severe strain upon courage.
Mr. Mead's appreciation tells how she met
this final test.

At the memorial services portraits of Cyn-
thia and tier favorite flowers made a setting
in which Mr. Ames interpreted in readings
— among others, the thirteenth chapter of

70 Cynthia Whitaker Tufts

I Corinthians, and Matheson's "O love,
that will not let me go" — and prayer, the
questionings and valuations of the spirit,
and the sympathies of our common human-
ity; Mr. Moore read selections from the
sketch of her early life and described her
dominant interests as they had come to
expression in the discussions of that group
for which the sketch was written; Mr.
Mead gave an intimate impression of her
character; memories were for many trans-
muted into a sense of living presence. It
would be out of place to attempt to retouch
the drawing which these friends made with
such sureness and affection, or to inject
what belongs to family intimacy, but I
trust myself to speak of one trait not dwelt
upon in the impressions of her friends which
did not belong to privacy of affection and
which my wife herself liked to have recog-
nized. This was her good judgment, which
showed in wise decisions for both the lesser
and the greater questions of family welfare,
and in estimates of men and women, meas-
ures and policies.

Cynthia Whitaker Tufts 71

In her case this good judgment rested on
a keen observation, an unflinching facing of
facts, and a sure sense for relative values.
Her keenness of observation went natu-
rally with the acute and definite percep-
tions accompanying her deftness in crafts and
her artistic sense. Her unflinching facing
of facts was as free from the suspicious
temper which always seeks an ulterior and
preferably a sinister motive as from the
easy optimism which dislikes to look care-
fully at possibly unpleasant consequences,
or tires of examining all bearings of a situa-
tion. Her sense for relative values put
things into their perspective and did not
allow small matters to obscure the really
important issues and ends. In a demo-
cratic family council every opinion is of
course open to discussion, and is liable to
be challenged to give its reasons. My wife
claimed no special privilege for hers. But
she seldom failed to convince by her analy-
sis, and we learned to believe that if we
did not at once see things as she saw them
it was almost certainly because she saw

11 Cynthia Whitaker Tufts

more clearly and estimated more justly
and wisely.

The letters of sympathy from both inti-
mate friends and those who met her only
occasionally use one expression so generally
that it may fitly be reproduced as charac-
terizing the impression that she made and
that is suggested in the portrait by Mrs.
Schiitze which fronts the title-page — "A
gracious and beautiful personality."

SOME OF THE DEEPER INTERESTS

By ADDISON W. MOORE

A few days after Mrs. Moore and I first
arrived at the University, we received an
invitation to an informal gathering of the
faculty and students of the Department
of Philosophy to be held at the home of
Mr. and Mrs. Tufts. This was our first
meeting with Mrs. Tufts. I distinctly recall
that a part of our homeward gossip that
evening was about the gracious personality
of our hostess. And we felt it was a gra-
ciousness not of mere manner or of social
savoir faire, but that it was the expression
of a gracious soul, of a generous human
interest and sympathy. A long period of
subsequent association, increasing in inti-
macy with the years, has continuously con-
firmed and deepened that first impression.

For the past fifteen years it has been our
good fortune to belong to a small reading
and discussion club of which Mrs. Tufts
was always one of the most interested and
interesting members. Having picked up in
73 '

74 Cynthia Whttaker Tufts

the course of these meetings enough of each
other's life-history to pique our curiosity
concerning the rest, it was proposed that
each member submit to the club as much of
the story of his life as he cared to reveal. I
think all of us here who heard those histories
will agree that probably the most interest-
ing, both in its material and in its literary
quality, was the one read by Mrs. Tufts.
(Here followed the reading of some passages
from the manuscript of "My Life.")

Recalling Mrs. Tufts's participation in
the general discussions of the club, I have
asked myself what were the things to which
she responded with greatest enthusiasm, for
the range of matters discussed during these
years touched at some point most of the
issues and values of life. She had indeed
an exquisite sensitiveness to beauty, espe-
cially to the charms of nature and of literary
art in all its forms. This sensitivity, more-
over, was combined with a comprehensive
intelligence and a very rare and saving sense
of humor which prevented it from ever
degenerating into sentimentalism.

Cynthia Whitaker Tufts 75

But neither nature nor art nor abstract
science most kindled her soul. As I recall
the scenes of these discussions my picture
of Mrs. Tufts in the moments of her
greatest interest finds her in the midst
of discussions of human relationships, par-
ticularly of human suffering due to the
inequalities and injustices of our present
world. On one occasion after presenting
vividly the contrast between the chances
of survival, of food, of sanitation, and of
education of our children here in the Uni-
versity community and the children of the
West Side, she concluded by asking with
intense feeling, "Why should my children
have proper food, expert medical attention,
and every educational advantage, because
they happen to be born in Hyde Park
instead of in Halsted Street ?"

And this sympathy with human suffering
was in spite of the fact that Mrs. Tufts
knew far more than most of us what it
means to bid such a Spartan defiance to
physical pain that only the near members
of the family, and they not always, knew

76 Cynthia Whitaker Tufts

anything about it. I say in spite of this
fact; for it is only rare natures who sur-
mount the dwarfing and self-centering effects
of recurrent physical pain.

For the past few years, this human interest
of Mrs. Tufts found part of its field in the
work of the Vocational Supervision League
and for the past year as editor of the official
Bulletin of the League. As an expression of
the wide outlook which she brought to her
work, I quote the following passage from one
of her last editorials: "There is a new spirit
abroad in the world; a new vision of a
world organized for life, not for death; for
peace, not for war; a world in which life and
happiness, not death and destruction, are to
be the aim of governments."

But wherever understanding of and sym-
pathy with human suffering is so fundamental
as it was in Mrs. Tufts, we do not find one
looking out upon the world and life in general
with a smug and complacent optimism.
She was not one of those timid souls who
cannot find and enjoy goodness or beauty
until all evil and distortion have been

Cynthia Whitaker Tufts 77

reduced to illusion and put away. She
looked out, undismayed, with level and
discerning eyes upon our world of mixed
good and evil, entering into the joy of
beauty and goodness wherever she found
them, and protesting with equal intensity
the distortion and evil. Nor did she seek
to evade human responsibility both for the
existence and the cure of evil by shifting
it upon Providence or the cosmos at large.
Her creed was that good will be "the final
goal of ill" only if we clearly see and highly
resolve and mightily strive to make it so.

CYNTHIA TUFTS— AN IMPRESSION

By GEORGE H. MEAD

Cynthia Tufts I met first, for a few
moments, in Berlin some twenty-nine years
ago, and I have of the meeting only a
memory of delight, such as that left by
beauty and distinction whether encountered
in persons or in landscapes; one of those
pleasures that have no slight or trivial
influence on the best portion of a man's life.
It was four years later that she became a
distinct figure to me, when we came to
Chicago in 1894.

In the quarter of a century that has
passed since then, I have the impression,
not of the lines of her nature becoming
more distinct to me, but that what lay
behind and within them has been gradually
appearing. There are persons who leave
no impressions or but slight and shadowy
impressions in an earlier meeting. They
do not express themselves in the conven-
tional intercourse of slight acquaintanceship.
78

Cynthia Whitaker Tufts 79

Mrs. Tufts, without being unconventional,
was always a definite personality on any
occasion, however slight, and further knowl-
edge of her became a natural part of the
outline which bare meeting had left.

No person could give so self-contained a
response of herself unless she had achieved a
personality which met her own essential
standards. She did not need the judg-
ments of others upon her to be sure of her-
self. We feel that many persons would fall
to pieces if social relations slipped and the
harness of life wore loose. Mrs. Tufts came
into social situations a self-contained per-
sonality that gave rather than took an
impress, and she impressed with quietness and
beauty. There was a dignity in her nature
that could not be lowered. She accepted
social standards without conveying, the im-
pression that they commanded her.

I never knew whether she had gained her
poise with effort and out of an earlier
diffidence which had made attainment diffi-
cult and painful, though I suspected that
this might be the case, for she was so

8o Cynthia Whitaker Tufts

understandingly appreciative of others, she
took such pains that others should be at
their ease with her, that I guessed a natural
sympathy with those who were ill at ease
themselves.

In fact, comprehension and understanding
of others were the center of her social attrac-
tion and power. She understood, and with
understanding went sympathy and quick
response to ideas and experiences and espe-
cially sufferings.

It was easy to lead out one's most
cherished doctrines in her presence. They
put on their best appearance under her
encouragement. And I went away from
conversation with her with the sense that
my ideas were better than I had supposed.

But if sympathetic understanding was
the center of her power, the adornment of
it was her wit, which never failed where
wit was in place. It could be a weapon
of defense; I never knew it to be a weapon
of offense. It was not mixed with malice,
and it went with a natural subtlety which
at times failed of the comprehension she

Cynthia Whitaker Tufts 8i

gave others so fully. It was part of the
equipment with which she faced the assaults
of life and the blows of fate. She said of
herself that she faced what life and death
had to bring with ironic patience; and it
was the ironic response that gave me the
feeling that she was so true a sport.

She suffered in many ways. She was
the victim of migraine that dogged her
path with recurrent headaches. She was
forced to carry the strain of growing deaf-
ness that kept her continually on the alert,
guessing at what she lost in conversation
and making up from the context, the while
she was striving to catch what followed. It
is not easy in the company of pain and the
strain of overtaxed attention to face the
struggles of daily existence and the pro-
founder distresses that every life carries
with it; but she did this and came through
it with a free spirit, facing the struggle and
the wreckful siege of battering days with
ironic patience, and with the most loyal
comprehending love for those who loved her,
and the most sensitive enjoyment of beauty.

82 Cynthia Whitaker Tufts

It was our great advantage to be with
Mrs. Tufts in Miami, Florida, the most of
one winter, and to have our enjoyment of
its semi-tropical splendors of foliage and
sea enhanced and heightened by her love
of its colors and its atmosphere.

She spent a spring in Spain, and there
in its colors and Hnes and scenery she felt
at home. She quoted of herself a passage
from a book of Maugham's: "Sometimes a
man hits upon a place to which he mysteri-
ously feels that be belongs. Here is the
home he sought, and he will settle amid
scenes that he has never seen before, among
men he has never known, as though they
were familiar to him from his birth. Here
at last he finds rest."

I have never met a person to whom
flowers, especially roses, were such a poign-
ant delight as they were to Mrs. Tufts,
and her sense of colors and their combina-
tions was as sure as the moral law. Her
memory was the dwelling-place of poetry
as beautiful as the flowers and landscapes
she passionately loved.

Cynthia Whitaker Tufts 83

During her long, wasting sickness the
beauty that marked her in hfe never deserted
her, her unconquerable soul coming in to
take possession where the body failed. She
never lost her wit, nor her comprehension,
nor her loyal love, nor her sympathetic
appreciation, nor her humorous sense of
the fatuities of existence.

It is only in these later years that I have
had the privilege of feeling at home in her
mind and its world, and have realized the
combination of fineness, loyalty, keenness
of insight, contempt of pretense, the wary
pessimism of her view of the future, and
her devotion to the interests of her own,
whether family or friends, or the onward
movements she could take part in, or follow
in the efforts of others whom she loved and
seconded and admired. I have had great
joy in converse with her, and now that she
is gone all the features of her nature that
I have become familiar with take their
places in the picture of one of the finest, the
bravest, clearest, and most beautiful souls
I have had the privilege to know.